American Enduring Cultural Icons

One of America’s enduring cultural icons is dead, at 96. Jack LaLanne, who preached the virtues and values of working out long before it was fashionable, has checked out, to the rhythm of Diana Ross’ jump-up classic, “I want muscles!” (Released, 1983.)
Born the of son of poor French immigrants,LaLanne was noted, first of all, as a sickly sugar addict with a prodigious sweet tooth. He just couldn’t get enough pop, cakes, candy, each one more destructive to his health and well-being than the last.
But for fate at the hands of pioneering nutritionist Paul Bragg, LaLanne’s might have turned into the garden variety tragedy: diabetes, its complications, debility, death. However, fate — and Bragg — intervened.
Bragg, like all nutritionists, was a person on a mission. When overweight, pimply LaLanne showed up in Bragg’s dressing room following the master’s standard program on the necessity for a nutritional wake-up call, Bragg slammed Lalanne with the tough love approach:
November 29, 2011 at 7:42 am Comments (0)







